01/11/21         ⏱︎ 6:00-7:30pm         ⚲ Rittersaal of the Stockalper Castle, Brig

Free entrance / Donations
No reservation, open seating
70 minutes without interval

MANUEL WALSER BARITONE
BENJAMIN MEAD PIANO

No other season but autumn reminds us more of the twilight of life, and no other days but All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day remind us more of the past and the transience of life. The two internationally successful musicians, MANUEL WALSER (Baritone) and BENJAMIN MEAD (Piano), first performed together at the LIEDERGARTEN in 2020. Now, the duo turns to works by Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler, composers who all address the themes of loss, death, and reflection on life in their own ways.

Johannes Brahms' „Four Serious Songs" straddle between folksy and archaically expressive tones, grappling with death akin to a requiem in song form. The music can be seen as the quintessence of his work, as Brahms' own twilight years were marked by the loss of many people in his circle of friends. Clearly autobiographical, both the text and music of the „Songs of the Deaths of Children" include Friedrich Rückert, who lost two of his six children in 1833 and 1834, processing their loss in no fewer than 428 poems. Gustav Mahler set five of these poems to music in 1904 without a direct reason, but perhaps in premonition: three years after completing the songs, his daughter died of scarlet fever, like Rückert's children. Particularly, the song „All Souls' Day" from Richard Strauss' first song cycle „Last Leaves" op. 10 captures the memory of beautiful but past togetherness in late-romantic music, already turning towards the 20th century.